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Posted at 12:30 PM EST.

7:05 PM EST. Regulation only. The Jackets return home from a three-game California trip (San Jose, L.A., Anaheim) and at one time that was a strong angle to fade, but not anymore. It would appear as though teams’ are more aware of the propensity to be lethargic in the first game back from a trip and have seemingly prepared better. That “angle” is just not there anymore but it still holds weight and we therefore get the Jackets at a true bargain price here. It also doesn’t hurt the price that the Jackets lost the final two games of said trip and have now lost three of its last four games with losses to Detroit, Anaheim and Los Angeles. A case could be made that trio is three of the five worst teams in the NHL and they all just beat Columbus. It’s also worth mentioning that the Jackets have played seven home games this year and were favored in all of them by big margins. They were -155 over Carolina, -155 over Colorado, -162 over Philadelphia, -147 over Chicago, -175 over Arizona, -192 over Buffalo and finally, -218 over Detroit. Today, they opened much shorter against a Dallas team that is worse than most of those teams mentioned above. Again, this is a bargain. That said, we’ll plug our nose and hope that Sergei Bobrovsky doesn’t cost us this game because this wager has nothing to do with backing the Jackets and everything to do with fading the Stars.

Dallas played last night in Boston and lost 2-1 in OT. That was a credible loss on paper but under the hood, it was a hugely flattering score to the Stars. Boston held a dominating 22-5 edge in scoring chances and that’s the story of that game. The B’s probably should have won 6-0 or something like that but it’s good they did not because results influence the market and in that regard, the Stars picked up another point at a difficult venue to run their record to 8-5-1. That record is fool’s gold.

Overall analytics tell a story but we prefer to break it down in sections because of injuries, adjustments and other things, especially early in the year when more adjustments are made. Over the past six or seven games (some teams have played six, some have played seven), Dallas ranks 29th out of 31 teams in the NHL in Expected Goals for per 60 minutes (xGF/60). It’s not just xGF/60 either, as the Stars rank 30th (second last), just ahead of Ottawa in Corsi For % during five-on-five play and bottom three in several other key analytics. To top it off, Dallas will play the final game of a rather exhausting road trip here that started in Detroit on Oct 28. That’s six games in 10 nights, three games in the last four nights and tail end of back-to-backs after chasing the puck for 60 minutes last night in Boston. This is a tired invader that is ripe for the pickings.

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